Films Tag

I didn’t want to blog about the controversy around Jodhaa Akbar simply because it doesn’t deserve the attention it is getting. The opinion I’ve heard about the movie is that it is an expensive and lengthy bore–at the least. Taking liberties with history is nothing new to Bollywood. Jodhaa Akbar is just the latest after the cinematic character-assassination of Bhagat Singh. Akbar’s benevolence is a loaded term because history shows his love for mass murder in the service of Islam. He was just less crueller than Babur or Humayun orRead More

I finally watched the movie that’s sent the whole of Karnataka into a tizzy. I’m glad I watched Mungaru Male. The best things in life are often simple. Mungaru Male’s simplicity is its success secret: when was the last time you saw the Sold Out sign for a Kannada film in an upmarket theatre like PVR for the 10 PM show?Read More

I haven’t followed any Girish Karnad plays after the horrendous Agni Mattu Male (The Fire and the Rain). But it is nice to learn that his plays still enjoy enormous fan following in the circles that matter. To my knowledge, Karnad has written at least three plays after Agni Mattu Male. All three have expectedly received rave reviews from the obvious quarters. Here’s another review from Uma, which sounds balanced. Let’s see how.Read More

The inevitable has to happen to any religion that only stands on the shaky ground of faith: it has to die its natural death. When Faith can no longer be asserted by violence, other, more desperate means are tried. Money, for example. Even that cannot take you too far, at best it can prolong the death by a few more years. So it is with Christianity, a religion founded exclusively on the Myth that is Jesus Christ.Read More

This time it’s a journalist, not a novelist. Reviewing (shallow) Water made by the self-scourging Deepa Mehta. I had covered the likes of Mehta earlier. So this review is not worth writing about. And he makes all the usual noises about the backwardness of widow-related traditions, and other blah-blahs. Is it surprising then, that the cheerleaders of these gutter inspectors should be left behind? They’re right there, behind them, tooting the Western trumpet with glee.Read More

This was inevitable. Film actor Sanjay Dutt, held guilty for possessing arms in the 1993 bomb blast case, on Thursday arrived at the TADA court which would hear his plea seeking time to surrender. Dutt’s lawyers are likely to seek a pardon for him on the grounds of good behaviour. G-o-o-d b-e-h-a-v-i-o-u-r.Read More

Tarka (trans=Logic) launched one of the most amazing directors in Kannada cinema. Although it didn’t exactly set the box office ablaze, it signalled that Sunil Kumar Desai had arrived with his maiden directorial venture. A pity that Desai retired a couple of years ago. Tarka is a suspense-thriller, murder-mystery and pscyhological-horror tale all rolled into one. Its highlight is its taut, and fresh screenplay as well as the gripping tale. It is one of those rare songless movies. I’ve always despised the presence of songs in a movie that’s supposedRead More

As promised, here’s my review of Shankar Nag’s debut movie. Apart from paving the way for Shankar’s trailblazing career as both actor and director par excellence, this film has in its own small way, retained a cult-like reputation. A one-of-a-kind film in Kannada cinema, almost no other Kannada film has managed to achieve its class in terms of script and narration. I can only recall two miserable failures that attempted this kind of cinematic storytelling: Bharjari Bete and Gandabherunda. The latter was a pathetic inspiration of Mckenna’s Gold. Directed byRead More

I’ll take a temporary departure from blogging about political dirt and assault you with my enlightened views on Shankar Nag’s movies. No, I’m not his fan–not now, not in my childhood despite growing up watching his movies. I simply think he made, and acted in some amazing movies that beg to be talked about in more detail. I’ve already reviewed one of these. The most striking aspect of Shankar Nag’s movies is the utter lack of pretension: he did make some “serious” (hate that word in the context of cinema) moviesRead More

It’s now the wife’s turn. To say the same things. On an occasion it was uncalled for. Versatile Bollywood actress and social activist Shabana Azmi on Friday depricated as unjust and untrue the tendency of equating Islam with terrorism as she received the prestigious International Gandhi Peace Prize…Read More

Amardeep Singh has an interesting article that’s curiously titled the communalisation of censorship. I believe he also runs a blog, which I tune into on and off. The article begins quite engagingly, recounting recent and past incidents of censorship in India, what was done about it and so on, but runs into few problems starting some place around this paragraph. With a secular United Progressive Alliance government led by the Congress party currently in power, the central government strictures may have been loosened…Read More

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Preface Among others, Buddha both upheld and clarified the concept of Yagna in language that laymen could comprehend. This goes contrary to the widespread belief that Buddha condemned the concept of Yagna as we shall see later in this essay.

Here is a great article on Hindu revivalism in Jaffna: a depressing and inspiring account of how Jaffna combated centuries of vicious onslaught against Hinduism. After about 300 years of intense persecution under the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Hindus

I had concluded the previous post with a note on AKR’s understanding of Hindu ethics and traditional expositions on Dharma. He notes that Each addition is really a subtraction from any universal law. There is not much left of an

The JNU high priests must have cursed the moment they decided to invite Umberto Eco to speak. Says this report: Celebrated Italian author Umberto Eco left many academics and students at Jawaharlal Nehru University squirming with embarrassed ignorance on Monday.

As promised to Yossarin, I hereby add, clarify, and (hope to) correct some items in Yossarin’s elucidation of Dharma. I’ve adopted his question-answer format because it offers a nice readymade template. 🙂

Those familiar with Sanskrit–even an introductory course is sufficient–are sure to know Bhartruhari mainly via reading several Subashitaas (noble sayings in verse form). Indeed, almost every other verse by Bhartruhari is a Subashitaa. A King of Ujjain, Bhartruhari was the

This post has adopted Ananda Coomaraswamy’s essay of the same title. I vaguely recall writing in this post, that Coomaraswamy typically wrote “for the professional.” The present essay however, is one of those rare introductory pieces he wrote several decades

Do Indians have a sense of history? No is pretty much the received wisdom even today in major sections of the academia, media and the rest. If you as much as question the sources, the roots of this received wisdom,

A few weeks ago, I made a hurried list that broadly categorized contemporary Hindus based on certain general parameters. Gurcharan Das of India Unbound fame adds to this list by slotting himself into a new category: Liberal Hindu. Much of

Gross generalizations about a country, a people, and a culture are humourous when done in the lighter vein. In most other cases, they are appalling. If you wonder why Westerners/foreigners are so ill-educated about India, articles like this is the